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Zelda's Contest History
Who is Zelda? In the beginning of the Legend of Zelda series, Zelda was the prototypical princess that had to be rescued by the hero. But as the series has grown, so too has Zelda's role within. A Link to the Past saw Zelda interacting with Link near the beginning of the game, and the revelation that Sheik is just Zelda in disguise in Ocarina of Time is perhaps the series' biggest spoiler. Zelda went on to aid Link in the final boss battle in The Wind Waker, and Nintendo plans on making Zelda a playable character in Twilight Princess. Zelda a playable character in the series named after her... took those idiots long enough. Though despite finally coming into her own in the Zelda series, Zelda's biggest accomplishment in gaming may be the fact that Sheik is the best character in Super Smash Brothers Melee. Tournament-level Sheiks are damn near unbeatable, though it'll suck when Nintendo decides to nerf Sheik to hell and back come SSBB. They're stupid like that. "Link! I don't know how to say this... everything that's happened to you and your poor sister... It's all been my fault. I'm so sorry..." - Zelda Zelda's Contest History Win-Loss Record: 19-9 Summer 2003 Contest - West Division - 10 Seed * Western Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Lara Croft, 70941 62.29% - 42940 37.71% * Western Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Mega Man, 43239 39.25% - 65528 60.75% * Extrapolated Strength --- 19th Place 30.29% Summer 2005 Contest - Gear Division - 5 Seed * Gear Round 1 --- Defeated (4) Vivi, 62347 59.56% - 42324 40.44% * Gear Semifinal --- Lost to (1) Solid Snake, 48941 45.59% - 58421 54.41% * Extrapolated Strength --- 14th Place 30.89% Zelda made a decent splash in her first contest when she ripped apart Lara Croft before being the first character to actually make Mega Man look fallible. She then took a year off, but came back in a big way in Summer 2005. Vivi/Zelda was a match that many expected Vivi to win based on the 2004 stats not accounting for Sephy/Vivi SFF, but Zelda proceeded to lay a 60-40 beating on Vivi as if he didn't even belong in the contest at all. A lot of Zelda > Snake hype was borne of this (as well as the horrendous match pic that Snake received in the second round), but Snake held his own and was able to beat Zelda with a minimal effort. Zelda being stuck facing a Noble Nine character in the second round of each contest appearance may have led to her early demise on both occasions, but the Twilight Princess herself could see herself on that level once gamers finally begin taking control of her in a Zelda title. Summer 2006 Contest - Triforce Division - 1 Seed * Triforce Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Carmen Sandiego, 102509 86.08% - 16578 13.92% * Triforce Semifinal --- Defeated (4) Terra Branford, 92826 79.45% - 24005 20.55% * Triforce Final --- Defeated (2) Aeris, 71597 56.87% - 54300 43.13% * Elite Eight --- Defeated (1) Yuna, 77105 57.02% - 58112 42.98% * Final Four --- Lost to (1) Samus, 58985 44.73% - 72890 55.27% * Extrapolated Srength --- 4th Place 44.73% Zelda is a very strong character normally, but the female half of this bracket made it so that no character other than Samus could beat her. She embarrassed her first two opponents, made Aeris and Yuna look identical in strength and nearly broke 45% in an SFF loss. Pretty broken for a non-NN character if you ask me, and she'll only continue going up thanks to the hardon GameFAQs has grown for Nintendo. Summer 2007 Contest - Division 4 - Second Group * Division 4 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 42692 29.88% - Vincent Valentine, 55265 38.68% - The Boss, 22633 15.84% - Miles "Tails" Prower, 22287 15.60% * Division 4 Round 2 --- 4th place, 11297 7.78% - Link, 74350 51.19% - Vincent Valentine, 40309 27.75% - Bidoof, 19278 13.27% When the bracket was released, some people were upset that Zelda would have to face Link in the second round because it meant that she could beat Vincent in round 1 and still end up on the short end of the stick. Turns out that those concerns were unnecessary, as Vinny destroyed her. Zelda is one of those characters who seems to thrive on name value, and in a multiway poll, that value is not as high, and it showed here. Summer 2008 Contest - Division 2 - Third Group * Division 2 Round 1 --- 2nd place, 32691 24.59% - Mario, 53836 40.47% - Knuckles the Echidna, 27794 20.90% - Fei Fong Wong, 18695 14.05% * Division 2 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 27572 20.09% - Mario, 42599 31.04% - Mega Man X, 41146 29.98% - Mudkip, 25908 18.88% Zelda was one of the many characters that were screwed because of bracket placement in this contest. Despite that she was able to hold herself well against Mario and defeat Knuckles in the first round and was able to comeback during the day against joke character Mudkip in the second. Winter 2010 Contest - Varia Division - 10 Seed * Varia Round 1 --- Defeated (7) Travis Touchdown, 34556 70.67% - 14340 29.33% * Varia Round 2 --- Defeated (2) Ezio Auditore da Firenze, 47699 62.11% - 29099 37.89% * Varia Semifinal --- Defeated (14) Jecht, 44712 59.72% - 30156 40.28% * Varia Final --- Lost to (1) Samus Aran, 18286 36.15% - 32292 63.85% * Extrapolated Strength --- 16th Place 31.70% Despite having a low seed Zelda was able to go far in this contest. Overall Zelda performed worse than expected in all of her matches. It started off with her failing to triple Travis in the opening round. Her match against Ezio was okay, but failing to break 60% against Jecht was horrible, sure Final Fantasy XIII was released on the day, but you can't blame everything on a game that he wasn't even going to be in. While no one expected a repeat of their 2006 meeting Zelda ended her contest with a humbling loss at the hands of Samus. Summer 2013 Contest - Division 9 - 16 Seed * Division 9 Round 1 --- 1st place, 15353 61.63% - (3) John Marston, 6758 27.13% - (25) Sackboy, 2799 11.24% * Division 9 Round 2 --- 2nd place, 11359 41.43% - (7) Charizard, 11374 41.49% - (15) Donkey Kong, 4683 17.08% After crushing her first round match it was expected by most of the board that Zelda would rollover and let Charizard through, especially after the round Pokemon was having. Instead she was able to take an early lead and build it up to just under 300 votes. Charizard however, was able to make a comeback and was able to take the lead with just over one hour to go. Zelda would make a late attempt to retake the lead by scoring cuts of 19 and 33, but Charizard was able to stall just long enough to win the match leaving Zelda just 15 votes short of the third round. Fall 2018 Contest - Division 5 - 4 Seed * Division 5 Round 1 --- Defeated (13) Ezio, 21623 75.33% - 7081 24.67% * Division 5 Round 2 --- Defeated (12) The Boss, 21205 70.7% - 8788 29.3% * Division 5 Semifinal --- Defeated (1) Squall, 11385 19656 - 63.32% - 36.68% * Division 5 Final --- Defeated (15) Aeris, 18235 62.19% - 11088 37.81% * Legends Division --- Defeated (3) Solid Snake, 14535 50.32% - 14350 49.68% * Legends Quarterfinals --- Defeated (4) Sonic the Hedgehog, 16210 56.45% - 12507 43.55% * Legends Semifinal --- Defeated (6) Mario, 13733 50.91% - 13242 49.09% * Legends Final --- Lost to (1) Link, 10547 36.44% - 18399 63.56% * Loser Bracket Final --- Lost to (4) Cloud Strife, 13517 48.94% - 14101 51.06% Breath of the Wild was the biggest Zelda game in ages, Smash Bros hype propelled all of Nintendo through the roof... but even with that, no one expected the Hyrule princess to perform so impressively, going all the way to her lover that is the series protagonist - while scoring percentages that at times even reminded of Link. Zelda smushed her division, featuring three characters she'd already beat in previous contests and one of the few Final Fantasy characters who remained reliable as the series lost its strength. And when put in the Finals Division that held most of the Noble Nine, Zelda showed she was boosted to bracket-wrecking levels: she avenged her loss to Snake by narrowly beating him through bigger outside support (Snake in turn had most of the registered user vote, that counted double), had respectable numbers against Sonic, and ultimately upset the same Mario who brought her down in 2008 to set up one of the most unexpected finals ever (literally: only 1.66% of the brackets submitted!). As well as least awaited: even ardent fans of the series were displeased with the fact that Zelda being a Link proxy would lead to a boring SFF match against the real deal, and even if the Princess started ahead with the board vote, she predictably collapsed to the once and future champion. Runner-up in the regular bracket, now came the real test for Zelda's strength in the only guy who beat Link without joke support or a swarm of invaders. Zelda predictably lead for about half the match, before Cloud, for the second match in a row, showed he's still got it in 1-on-1s. Still, nothing will take away from the fact this was Zelda's best tournament. She faced 5\9 of the Noble Nine in a single contest (add the Mega Man and Samus defeats, and now Zelda is tied with Ryu for 7\9! If there's another contest, make her face Crono and Sephiroth!), and only couldn't hold her own against Link, because no matter if it's the princess's name in the title, the guy people actually play as takes preference. Category:Contest Histories